www.saigonstarschool.edu.vn

Ellen Thompson Principal

Dear Parents & Carers,

For most, April must have seemed like a very short month, but the school has been busy behind the scenes, finalising recruitment for the new school year starting in August and continuing the development plans for the new Secondary school.

I would like to start by thanking all the staff, parents and students for coming out to support the school during the ‘Color Me Run’ event. We have received a lot of positive feedback from participants and the event organisers, as well as prospective parents. Your hard work created a positive first impression for many people in the race and will lead to greater awareness of our school and our name, I’m sure.

We also had our first friendly football match against FOSCO School. This was the first in a number of new inter-school activities, Mr. Brendan and Mr. James have been working towards. Mr. James’ coaching, plus the positive reaction of the

Year 3, 4 and 5 children, created a competitive and sporting match, played in a fantastic spirit and which finished in a 2-0 victory for the Saigon Star Strikers. We will be holding another match on 23rd May; Please consider supporting our team if you have time.

Thanks must also go to Ms. Sherley and Mr. Huw, as Earth Day was once again a huge success. With the help of the teachers, the children made pet rocks, went on a nature walk, made an art project with recycled materials and learned about ways to conserve energy and reduce waste. These are always important messages to convey to today’s school children and Ms. Sherley and Mr. Huw certainly sparked the children’s imaginations with their Earth Day projects.

Mr. Matthew has already started work on our End of Year Show and this time he has chosen the theme of ‘Musicals’ with each class presenting songs from famous musicals. We are also going to do something a little different this year by having our End of Year Show in the evening. We will have more details closer to the time.

Finally, we only have 2 more months left of this school year, but they promise to very active ones, so I hope everyone has made good use of the break and will be arriving back well rested, energised and ready to produce some of their best work to finish off this school year with a bang!

Kind regards,

Ellen Thompson

What’s in This Issue:

Page 2 Pre-School Nursery

Page 3 Reception Year 1

Page 4 Montessori

Page 5 Year 2

Page 6 Year 3 Football News Year 4 & 5

Page 7 Color Me Run

Page 8 Montessori Workshop

Page 9 Drama

Newsletter Issue 16

PTG Meeting

Sunday 10th May 3pm-5pm

Venue: KT & Ros’ House, Duong 18A, House No.14 An Phu Ward, District 2.

Please Call or Text 0902413097

to confirm attendance

www.saigonstarschool.edu.vn

Page 2

Ms. Sherley’s Pre-School Class has been learning about flowers. They admired the colours, sizes and shapes of different flowers around the school. They stopped, touched and smelled some of them as they walked round the school grounds. This was also a good lesson in learning about the responsibility of caring for plants and understanding how important it is to care for them. They soon understood cause and effects’ learning that plants die without water.

The whole class enjoyed learning different flower songs and stories. The students made flower pictures and hats. They also heard about the benefits that flowers can bring, for example making people feel special when they receive flowers whilst they are sick. This has been an enjoyable month for all concerned with the Pre-School Class.

Pre-School Ms. Sherley

Ms. Abbie’s Nursery Class have had an exciting start to the term, and have began their new International Primary Curriculum topic, 'Plants and Flowers'. As the students entered their classroom, they could see that the small world area no longer resembled a jungle. There were flowers and plants but it was different. Like all well kept secrets, the children had to wait until after their naptime to find out exactly what it was that had taken over the small world area. After naptime, the children sat in a circle eagerly waiting to find out. As they waited, Miss Nhu entered carrying a bunch of flowers for Ms. Abbie. The children were excited about why the flowers had arrived, where they had come from and who was the intended recipient.

Ms. Abbie then led a short discussion about the giving of flowers. The children pretended to get married by walking down the classroom with the flowers in their hand as well as pretending to give flowers to each other for special occasions. The students were instructed in how to look after flowers, in order to keep them beautiful.

The children formed groups of two and were then allowed to explore, with the help of an adult, the small world area, which had transformed into a flower shop! One child had to take on the role of the shopkeeper and the other the customer. During the first week, the children needed adult supervision, but were soon able to play independently in the area. It was another fantastic start to their new topic.

Nursery Ms. Abbie

An and Yuzune in the Flower Shop

Immy, Jolisse and Lucy singing ‘I Like the Flowers’

Kaho and Yuan holding their

handprint and footprint flowers

Syhami, Jean and Chini all got chance to play customer and shopkeeper

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Page 3

In April, Mr. Brendan’s Year 1 Class began their fourth and final IPC topic of the year, ‘Let’s Celebrate’.

As the name suggests, it is all about celebrations and the important role they play in society.

The students were first asked to think about all the celebrations in which they have taken part, or have seen or heard about. The children then began to plot each of these onto a timeline of 2014 and 2015, to develop not only their understanding of the past, present day and future, but also to learn that many celebrations and events happen annually. However, this was no ordinary timeline. Mr. Brendan designed it to fill the entire length of the classroom. This allowed the children to record their work in a new and interest-ing way, creating a memorable experience that will cement their learning of this important topic.

Year 1 Mr. Brendan

This term the children in Ms. Ann-Marie’s Reception Class have enjoyed learning about ‘Plants and Flowers’ through their IPC theme. The students learnt about how plants grow and the names and use of each part of a plant. The book of the term was ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and children were challenged to learn the story well enough to retell it in great detail; also rewriting parts of the story in their own words. To help bring the story to life, the children created their own beanstalks in their Art class; complete with clouds and a castle at the top. Children also created their own ‘Jack’ and ‘Giant’ cone characters to help them retell the story. Ms. Ann-Marie awarded each child in the class with their very own packet of ‘magic beans’ to help complete their story telling set.

Reception Ms. Ann-Marie

Jack and the Beanstalk creations on display

The enormous Year 1 timeline

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Ms. Adrienne’s Montessori Class moved onto their new IPC topic, 'Plants and Flowers'. The spring break had brought the fresh scent of spring to the Montessori class-room. The students were intro-duced to various activities related to the flowers and plants topic. They especially enjoyed doing flower arrangements in order to decorate the classroom. Everyone concentrated hard as they made mini vegetable ‘container gardens’ in the classroom.

Hopefully the vegetables will appear out soon, providing the children with another new activity. They will be required to write a journal and make drawings, recording the growth of the plants. The school has beautiful hibiscus plants in the garden. The children were very interested in flower

puzzles; they matched cards and booklets of flowers. This activity helped, as they got to see how the flowers from Montessori materials looked in reality.

Montessori Ms. Adrienne

Ha Mi chose to match the gardening process

cards after we made a mini vegetable container

garden

Kenneth was showing Oskar how to estimate the

length when cutting flowers

Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori was born in 1870 and became Italy’s second female doctor in 1896, after first receiving a certificate in Physics and Mathematics and then completing her Doctorate of Medicine at the University of Rome. Immediately afterwards, she started a research project working with children with learning disabilities. Influenced by physicians and educators’, Jean Itard and Edouard Seguin, Maria Montessori developed scientific methods and materials for these children, who she used as her research subjects for the ideas she developed. These children soon started passing public examinations usually undertaken by ‘normal’ students. This prompted a return to the University of Rome where she studied philosophy and psychology and continued to develop her method, which she called ‘scientific pedagogy’.

In 1907 she founded ‘Children’s House’ for low income working parents in Rome. Children with normal educational abilities between the ages of two to seven years old became her new test subjects and they excelled.

Maria Montessori was no longer teaching children directly but was instead teaching teachers. This helped spread her methodology all over the world and it soon became synonymous with advanced education for the period although it also courted controversy in some areas.

Through the First World War, the rise of Mussolini in her home country of Italy and then finally the Spanish Civil War she promoted Peace and Education. This caused her to become noticed by the political authorities of the time and caused her and her Montessori Method to fall in and out of favour as a results.

She moved to India in 1938 and spent the Second World War years interned in India, as an Italian national, by the English colonial powers, where she continued to run Montessori Method Schools for the poor. She incorporated nat-ural elements into elementary education and started a study of infants. The research led to three books and extend-ed Montessori programmes across Early Years and Primary education.

After the war, Maria Montessori continued with her teacher training, delivering courses in the UK, Italy, Austria, India

and Pakistan. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949, 1950 and 1951. She died in the Netherlands in

1952 at the age of 82.

Page 4

For more information on Montessori at Saigon Star go to Page 8 and our review on the Montessori Workshop

Maria Montessori 1870-1952

www.saigonstarschool.edu.vn

Page 5

Year 2 teamed up against Mr. Anh Tuan

Last term, the children in Mr. Anh Tuan’s Year 2 Class worked on a unit called ‘Media Magic’ which enabled them to plan a trip to the Central Post Office of Saigon. The children learned different ways of communication. They learned to write a letter and how to post it. It was a very unique experience for this modern generation, who generally always uses electronic devices. It was the first time for a majority of the class to send a proper letter.

The children chose a special friend or member of the family to send their letters to. They were excited to wait for their letters to start arriving. A big thank to Elliott’s mum who accompanied the class on this trip and was an invaluable help!

This term, they have moved onto the unit ‘Let’s Celebrate’ and our special creative entry point was to celebrate the Water Festival by having a Water Fight at Saigon Star. The children teamed up against the adults and obviously enjoyed this experience. Another great start to a new topic. The children go to the Post Office to post a letter

Year 2 Mr. Anh Tuan

Xi Muoi and Dat experiencing

another way to communicate

Water Festival Name Country

Nobo-borsho Bangladesh

Chaul Chnam Thmey Cambodia

Pi Mai Lao Laos

Thingyan Myanmar

Aluth Avurudda Sri Lanka

Songkran Thailand

Puthandu Malaysia, Singapore &

India

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Throughout April, Mr. James’ Year 3 Class made great strides in their new topic 'The Olympics'. They began, as always, with an exciting entry point.

On this occasion they were able to take part in ten different activities and answered various questions on current Olympian events. Since then, they

have looked at the history of the Games, including the Ancient Games, as well as the various locations of the Modern Olympics. In the last week, they have begun to consider the key factor of 'Sustainability' and how this can impact on whether a city is successful when bidding to host the games. They looked at sustainability when considering their own ‘Olympic Games’ and how they would make it long lasting for future generations.

The students utilised this topic in Literacy too, with Mr. James expressing his pleasure, in particular, at their news-paper reports on Usain Bolt's success in the 2012 Games.

It has been yet another very busy month for Mr. Huw’s Upper Key Stage 2 Class, both in school and out of it!

Some children in the class were present at the ‘Color Me Run’ and helped lead the percussion section of the

cheerleading group making a huge noise on their drums and taking delight in plastering their teacher in coloured powder. Jet entered the race, escorting Mr. Brendan and Mr. James around the run, all in hot pursuit of Ms. Abbie, who finished the race in the Top 20! It was a fantastic day and those that were present have already expressed a desire to run in next year’s race.

In school, the class took part in the football fixture organised by Mr. James. There were also lessons based around Earth Day, which makes us all consider how well we are looking after our planet. In addition to all this, the class fulfilled topic lessons on ‘The Olympic Games’ in which they discussed the importance of exercise for general wellbeing.

Year 3 Mr. James

Year 4 & 5 Mr. Huw

Page 6

Jet and Mr. Brendan after the run

Saigon Star recently played host to their first competitive sports fixture against a similarly sized international school, FOSCO. The team from D3 travelled across to join us and played their part in a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining game.

Both sides showed a sound awareness of the rules, a high level of sportsmanship and good teamwork. As ever with sport, there can only be one winner, and fortunately for us, we won 2-0.

Mr James, the coach and referee on this occasion, was proud of each and every one of the team but want-ed to pay particular credit to Thinh, who showed great bravery and re-actions in goal to keep a clean sheet, and Jet, who scored a marvellous individual second goal. We have scheduled a second fixture for Saturday 23rd May at 9.30am, at Saigon Star School where parents will be welcome to come along and cheer on the team.

Football News Saigon Star Strikers vs FOSCO

The Saigon Star Strikers showed good team work in both attack and defence

Thinh showed bravery and kept a clean sheet

Rebecca chases back to put a tackle in

www.saigonstarschool.edu.vn

Page 7

The Color Me Run was held for the first time in Saigon, last year in District 7, but with nearly a doubling in participants, they had to find a new location this year.

Fortunately for Saigon Star, that new location was Thanh My Loi. It followed on from a very successful Night Run that had taken place last November and was organised by the same company.

Saigon Star worked hard to get the race route changed to run past our school and the organisers promised to do it, the printed race route being shown to

pass our school, but at the last minute, when the Government Licence for the event was finally issued, it was announced that it would follow the previously accepted route.

It was still a marvellous opportunity to promote the school, gain valuable visibility and to associate Saigon Star with a successful and high profile event. A number of ideas were put forward including offering shower and changing facilities for the runners, but the main aim was to create an awareness of the location of the school and to bring the Saigon Star brand to the fore. It was suggested that we had a cheerleading and drumming group at our nearest corner and the PTG took on the major roles of organising instruments and gathering parent and student support.

The PTG did a fantastic job and along with Mr. Huw’s enthusiastic training, directing and conducting of the drumming band, we became a popular stop-off point for photo opportunities, dancing and general colour sharing for the 11,384 runners.

TV crews from VTV, HTV and VTC, among others, took video footage, and in the modern media era, runners with cameras filmed their day and posted it on YouTube and Facebook. Saigon Star posted pictures of their day on their own Facebook page and we received a number of emails afterwards from recent contacts commenting positively on our presence in the race and showing further

interest in the school.

Huge thanks must go out to all the parents and students who supported on the day. We hope everyone enjoyed themselves among the hard work and we are sure that the enthusiasm that was shown, brought our school alive to many new prospective and future parents. Great job everyone!

Color Me Run

This picture turned up on tuoi tre news

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Page 8

The Role, Methods & Purposes of Montessori

On 22nd April, Ms. Adrienne opened her Montessori classroom doors to parents and held Saigon Star’s fourth Parent’s Workshop of the School Year.

Our Montessori Programme is one of our least promoted curriculum features but one that, we believe, makes a significant difference in our provision and greatly enhances the growth of our Early Years students.

The Montessori element of our curriculum is possibly the least understood, although the word Montessori is often used as a prestigious definition of education methodology by other international schools and educators.

Fortunately we have a very experienced Montessori professional working as part of our professional teaching team at Saigon Star and Ms. Adrienne opened her presentation

with background on Maria Montessori, who she revealed, was born in Italy in 1870 . She chose to inform parents using one of the many Montessori techniques and the parents that attended got a chance to follow a Montessori learning method as an early introduction.

It became very clear to those parents that attended, that Ms. Adrienne is a very skilled and very creative Montessori teacher and her calm demeanour must surely influence the children in her class. Ms. Adrienne walked the parents through a number of the learning areas in her classroom. The children are free to educate themselves in any area they choose. All areas are educational and the items available in each lesson are chosen for the children by Ms. Adrienne, who ties them into IPC topics, or aims to support lessons or topics that the children’s Form Teacher may be working on, that week.

The educational value is very subtle but markedly valuable. Whether it’s developing fine motor skills, developing problem-solving skills, building concentration or attention spans, or simply helping a child to clearly understand numbers, volumes, space or quantities, the Montessori Method draws the children into activities. All

this is achieved with the lightest hand; Ms. Adrienne coaches and gently steers them to make new discoveries, rewarding them with positive encouragement and making them feel fulfilled.

Many of the Montessori ‘toys’ have an identifiable quality that stimulates a child’s senses. The apparatus is tactile. It is colourful. It may make a sound, or have a smell to it. The children are visibly engaged. Much of the Montessori Method is pre-programming the brain for future activities that a child will undertake in their Primary Education.

Montessori activity in Saigon Star School complements our Early Years Foundation Stage and Year 1. In this period, before the age of six, before a child’s brain has fully hardwired itself and while the brain is literally acting like a learning sponge, it’s a time when a child’s mind is open to creativity and exploration, but it is also a time where the character of a child can be cemented, so that building self-confidence and self-esteem are equally important. Montessori ties very much into the whole school philosophy of us working towards a child being everything they can be and underlines that at Saigon Star School, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

We hope that Ms. Adrienne will run this thought provoking and educational workshop again and that more of our Early Years’ parents will be able to come and see the benefits Montessori elements bring to our children. Size, shape and colour stimulate the senses

Montessori Workshop Ms. Adrienne

In Montessori children work as individuals or in pairs but rarely with a teacher

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Page 9

Mr Matthew has been working extremely hard, with children of all ages in the school. His Music and Drama Classes are highly valued and loved by the students. His work on the Christmas Show was outstanding and building on that, the children are already working on the school summer show, which will take place on Saturday 20th June.

For the summer show, the Drama Group will take the audience to New York’s famous theatre district, Broadway, to perform ‘The Sound of Musicals’. Each class will perform songs and scenes from some of the worlds’ most famous Musicals: Mamma Mia, Mary Poppins, The Lion King and many more. The children have begun their rehearsals and are excited for you to watch them next month.

Outside of his work with Saigon Star, Mr. Matthew runs a Youth Theatre for children in District 2. On Saturday 30th May, they will perform ‘Peter Pan’ at Saigon Pearl Elementary School, and we are delighted to report that some of the Saigon Star students are involved (Jasmine, Anumita & Maya). It is a free show for the community and promises to be a very entertaining performance, packed with singing, dancing, sword fights and gymnastics. If you would like to find out more, please email Mr Matthew (matthew@sociomuso.com) or go to his website (www.sociomuso.com)

Drama Mr. Matthew